How To Change Your Life Through The Power Of Words
HOW TO CHANGE OUR LIVES THROUGH THE POWER OF WORDS (Issue 13)
by Suzanne Kovi
How many of us have ever been faced with a situation where we felt as though our personal power were compromised? It may have been a fight with a loved one, a confrontation at work [or school], a loss of a job [or responsibility] that left us feeling helpless, or perhaps it was a situation that blind-sided us and now we are forced into a transition we weren’t prepared for. It can feel as though we are naked and vulnerable while trying to remain strong.
Many people live their lives in this state of hurt yet keep it buried deep inside not realizing that it affects their world and all the relationships around them. What does it take for a person to be able to brush herself off and stand strong when life’s circumstances seem too difficult to bear? It takes Courageous Communication to transform our lives from a place of fear and uncertainty to a place of bold courage and action.
Courageous Communication is simply this: saying what needs to be said, to whom it needs to be said and in such a way that creates win/win results. Simple, right? Not all the time.
One of the dangers of communication in a moment of turmoil is that we forget how to respond, and we choose to react. Becoming reactionary only adds fuel to the fire without providing solutions. Communicating by reacting is not a powerful way to heal, nurture and grow our relationships, it destroys them. I’m sure we all want the same thing: to be happy. So how do we develop our Courageous Communication in such a way that it empowers us and helps all our relationships progress forward?
We work on ourselves by trying to understand how and why we choose the words we choose and what fuels our responses. This takes courage.
To start healing our relationships, we need to heal our internal dialogue first. Each of us has a little voice that has this unique ability to hold us captive whenever we strive to create a change in our lives.
Although this little voice in our head may seem harmless, we need to become aware of the words we choose because over time they can damage our personal beliefs and keep us stuck in life. We can recognize these as words that diminish our self worth and disempower us. They may sound like,”What if…Not yet…I’m afraid…I’m not ready…My life will never change…I can’t” and so many more. These words are more to blame for our lack of courage than our past experiences are to blame. But through our experiences we create stories and a belief system about who we are. If these stories don’t support who we want to be, then the little voice in our head has us trapped. If we change our stories, we can change our personal belief system which will directly affect how we communicate. A powerful mindset will create the environment for healthy internal dialogue. We will see an improvement in our communication with others as we build our belief structure.
Sometimes we blame other people or a situation in our life for “making” us feel powerless, but here is an important point – no one can make us feel anything. We choose the feelings and the responses we have in life and we choose the internal dialogue that fuels our choices. To be a Courageous Communicator we need to begin with the little voice inside our head and reprogram it so we can progress forward.
But how do we begin to transform that little voice into one that will positively affect our relationships? The first thing we must do is to address the relationship we have with ourselves. This has to be strong. Our sense of personal love and self-respect has to come first. It is imperative, yet it can be the most difficult choice for many people to make.
Without personal love and respect, we risk being taken advantage of, walked all over, disrespected or worse. Do we know why? Because other people have not been told how we wish to be treated. If we don’t tell people how to treat us, they are left to their own imagination of what works…and it usually works for them. By communicating to others how we wish to be treated, we set up the relationship for success. We harness the responsibility for our own happiness and by setting the standard of powerful communication, we create the environment to nurture and heal the most important relationships in our life.
Maintaining healthy relationships is a team effort, one where each participant has to be at their personal best and they share the same goals – to reach a win/win solution. To become a Courageous Communicator we must begin with nurturing our personal relationship with ourselves. As we learn to honor and respect our views, opinions, dreams and ambitions, our communication style will be transformed. We cannot change another person’s ability to communicate well, but we can be the example of how another human being deserves to be treated and with that we can transform lives.
_______
CONCLUSION BY DIANE GOLD
Communication through words can help everything. What’s the worst that could happen if we opened our mouths and said our piece? Someone could get angry or not like us. But, on the other hand, we could make someone very happy, could feel relieved and we could make a friend for life. At the very least, we will get practice in self-expression if we take a chance and talk. AND, we will do a better job the next time, no matter what. It couldn’t feel any worse than holding in what we wanted to say. Right?
This week’s action step is to go and communicate with kindness, purpose and without self-judgment. Expression is not about perfection. It’s about saying what we want to say.
As Suzanne says, we must use Courageous Communication. If it doesn’t come easily, we can take it one step at a time. When we do, even if we are acting at the beginning, we will be one step closer to the courage that we seek and one step closer to becoming close to ourselves.
FEEDBACK
Please leave your comments following the full article in the Issues tab of this site.
______
SUZANNE KOVI, AUTHOR
Suzanne Kovi has over 20 years in the entertainment industry. She is a successful business woman, personal trainer and wife. Her greatest roles are that of mother and community leader. She is inspired by people and passionate about helping women and kids stake their unique claim in life. She challenges her readers to “get busy living” and is the author of Ignite Your Life Choices. You can learn more about Suzanne at www.igniteyourlifechoices.com.
